


Alright, Who Radicalized Steve?

by nervoussis



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angry teenagers, Current Events, Good Citizen Billy Hargrove, Homophobic Language, Lemon, M/M, Politics, Regan Administration, Soft Billy Hargrove, Steve Harrington Needs a Hug, We all need a hug, punk Billy Hargrove
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-17 11:53:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28599516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nervoussis/pseuds/nervoussis
Summary: Steve grins. "You're seventeen, so how do you join the resistance if you can't legally vote?"Billy stares at him for minute and then bursts out laughing, hands traveling back to fish his wallet from somewhere in his jeans. Billy holds out a thin, incredibly believable fake I.D."According to this guy, Harry Miller is twenty years old."Steve blinks. "You have a fake I.D. so you can vote?"(or) American Pie
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 19
Kudos: 72





	Alright, Who Radicalized Steve?

It's not like Steve hates school.

He could hold his own in Biology when he had Nancy Wheeler to tutor him, and English is a breeze so long as the letters stay in their place, but. Between the hours of nine and three everyday there are more important matters to attend to. 

Like the cheerleaders in their new uniforms, or the shortage of honey ham on Tuesdays because the school keeps suffering budget cut after budget cut, and that's where you could say it all started.

Honey Ham Day is a staple at Hawkins High and Steve can point to that afternoon, November Third at 11:45 am, when his favorite lunch was nixed for good as the day he started giving a shit, but.

Really it began in Mrs. Bullard's fourth period American History class junior year. 

Steve sits toward the back of the room with the other royalty. Near Tommy and Marcus Clark and the rest of the airhead jocks from the basketball team. Passing notes to the hottest snatch, and doing fuck all as Mrs. Bullard plows through the syllabus, major travesty by major travesty, with alarming enthusiasm and okay. 

Maybe it's kind of infectious.

Mrs. Bullard says he's a bright kid-- _Stefano shows real potential. His essay on the American Revolution was bar none--_ except _he has trouble focusing_ , when. Connie Bart reaches down to dig through her saddle bag and the lacy line her panties pokes above her skirt.

She doesn't say that, though, because Mrs. Bullard thinks Steve's caught up around his _teammates_ , around being an asswipe, but really it's Victoria's Fault. Her lacy little secret curved between two perfect cheeks. That's what has him failing fourth period.

So.

When Steve actually pays _attention_ he learns shit. Like the Civil War was pretty gnarly, and the Trail of Tears was heart wrenching, and maybe once in a while he'll silence the clowns long enough to realize that all those times Nancy said she was supposed to study? Maybe it wasn't just to get out of fucking around, maybe...

God.

Maybe it was actually...Fun? Steve doesn't know but he finds himself invested more and more in what Mrs. Bullard has to say. And when they get to World War One not even Connie Bart's _thong_ can pull Steve away from his notes.

And, like. Steve's disappointed in himself because he isn't a nerd, alright? Like, history's a thing of the past. A distant blip in the time-space continuum that gets swallowed when people grab hold of the truth, and like. It's not _important_ anymore. The lessons have been learned. 

But, like. Occasionally he's drawn in by a disgusting powdered wig kink and one _horrifying_ wet dream about bending Alexander Hamilton over the podium in the House of Representatives. And for a long time that's as deep as his interest in history goes. Mostly the girls in their short little ruffled skirts and the.

Boys. With their straining muscles and Marcus's jaw line have Steve focused on his dick first and only.

But.

But, but, but--

The day Billy Hargrove strolls into class with a denim denim jacket hooked on his index finger--James Dean _for real--_ winking at Mrs. Bullard and heeding her advice to _pick any available seat,_ shit only gets worse.

Billy's like a lemon drop fresh from California that day. All straight white teeth and sparkling blue eyes and then he's walking down the isle, book bags and winter coats parting like the Red Sea as he makes his way to the back of the room.

He picks the desk right next to the window. 

Right next to _Steve,_ where the sun casts a halo of gold around his springy blonde ringlets and every time he reaches across the isle to ask for an extra pen or to tug on the collar of Steve's crew-neck, there's another nail in Steve's coffin. 

And maybe, as the first World War hits Hawkins, those semi-frequent dreams about fucking Alexander Hamilton into his 17th century hay mattress turn into.

Dreams of fucking Billy. 

And hey--if the guy sacrifices his blue French beret every now and again for a powdered wig, that's no one's business but Steve's. 

But then, like.

Billy turns out to be _smart._ Beautiful and wickedly intelligent, like Nancy. And then completely not like her at all with his gold-dipped muscles that don a new costume with the arrival of the second World War. And then the pictures Mrs. Bullard digs out from the archives have Steve imagining, like. 

Greaser Billy.

And then somehow Steve's wearing spandex tights in his fantasies, good girl gone bad and all that, and those dreams morph from physical carnality to. 

Like, love.

The big number at the end of the movie where they ride off in a red convertible together has Steve wrapping a hand around himself straight out of REM pretty much every night.

Coming apart swift and easy, put back together a little more wrong each time.

Because the whole issue is, like. Totally Billy's fault. The way he always gets the class discussions going. Playing Devil's advocate and asking questions and always wanting to know what Steve thinks-- it's the hottest fucking thing in the world. 

Like it matters, what Steve gets from their homework. All. "I know you did the reading, Harrington, so what do you think about the U.S. involving themselves after Pearl Harbor?"

And Steve's grandad fought in World War Two, so what else can he say besides, "Um. People died. Were we just supposed to let that go unpunished?"

Billy smiles, like a shark, all. "Punishment. Now that'll get the blood pumping."

And Steve thinks it's weird. So weird and so _hot_ that Billy lets it slide, like. The toxic patriotism Steve's been spoon fed his whole life. That he uses it as a way to poke and prod at Steve's sensitive skin every period until he has Steve jacking off in the bathroom before gym _just to be safe._

But then, like, out of nowhere? Shit gets real.

Tommy thinks maybe it's because Billy's from California. Liberal, and all that. Because Billy always takes the side of the foreigner. The little guy. "Think of how they must feel," he'll say, because.

Everything is fucked. Everything's a conspiracy, and while Steve thinks it's irresistible as shit--Billy's _fuck America, the whole infrastructure needs to be torn down and rebuilt_ nonsense--he doesn't really believe in it until Vietnam. 

Until Mrs. Bullard assigns _The Things They Carried_ and a play called _a Piece of My Heart_ that shows the after effects of massive conflict. The way the American government takes young men and women away from their homes, and like. Feeds them to the machine of war. Only to thank the ones who avoided a body bag with homelessness, and PTSD, and no access to reliable resources to pull themselves out of that cave.

And maybe it gets Steve thinking about his own father. Who still wakes up screaming, who drinks too much and fights too hard to forget the faceless names Steve has heard stories of. Johnny and Eddie and Clark. Warriors and friends from a time when the world was smoldering flames.

So, yeah. 

It starts with honey ham and ends with blue eyes and the Civil Rights movement. 

Malcolm X and the realization of privilege, a word that feels slimy in Steve's mouth at first but turns to a stone in his belly when Lucas and Erica mention the words sometimes people called them on the street.

Suddenly Steve's biting back in fourth period American History.

Watching his grade rise. 

Feeling heat simmer from Billy's skin until he's pushing Steve under the bleachers and sucking that toxic patriotism out through his dick.

And after that first time, when Billy lights a cigarette and say, "thought you were just a pair of legs, but. Turns out you got a brain. Got some fire in ya after all," he offers to let Steve borrow some stuff.

Books, and. Music.

Movies, if he doesn't mind holding Billy's hand in the back row of the indie theatre in Indianapolis.

Steve takes a puff from the cigarette and coughs up a lung, "my parents'll kill me if they find propaganda in my bedroom." He said.

Because _yeah,_ and the PTA would crown them as the patron saints of parental control.

The kind of shit Billy's into, what he believes about the world, is unheard of in a place like Hawkins. Where Ronald Regan is projected to take the primaries in a landslide. Where everyone knows things are fucked up and broken but have.

Difficulty.

Seeing beyond the folds of their own ass to enact change.

"Gotta be sneakier than that, sugar." Billy says, two fingers tugging on Steve's belt loop, like. It hasn't been done up for less than thirty seconds. "Maybe hide 'em somewhere they won't look, or. In plain sight."

Steve thinks about it. "Where would I hide them?"

"Wherever you keep your skin mags, I guess." Billy shrugs, dropping to his knees again. "They gonna punish you for reading?"

Steve chokes on a breath as Billy swallows him down once more, hands falling to clutch the lapels of Billy's denim jacket where a metal pin digs into his flesh. The first letter of the alphabet encased in a ring. Steve has never seen anything like it before, but. 

Billy starts moving his tongue and Steve can't remember ever seeing anything at all.

\--

It ends with blue eyes and Civil rights and begins, again, with the election.

Steve's parents had a sign staked in the yard. Or, rather, the groundskeeper was sent out with a mallet in the late July heat to let the rest of town know--the Harrington's will be voting for Reagan in the 1984 race against communism or something.

Of course, Steve was too busy gearing up for basketball and chasing any ass wearing swim trunks to notice all the things _Let's Make America Great Again_ implied.

He thinks about it once. Just after Christmas when Nancy asks, moaning around Steve's mouth on her neck, who he'd vote for if he could. 

"Politics do it for you, Nance? Kinky."

And she pushes him away with a laugh and a gentle hand to the chest. All big green eyes and _Steve._ Voice serious in the way it only gets when it means something to her, whatever they're talking about.

So he pulls back, a line of drool connecting his tongue to the milky white skin of Nancy's throat and it's hot. So fucking hot, he's painfully hard in his jeans. Head foggy with lust, so he says, "I don't know. I'll be fine either way." 

Like an idiot.

Nancy asks to be driven home pretty quickly after that.

And at the front door to her split level slams shut, Steve can't figure out why that's such a turn off. The reality of it all, because.

He _will_ be okay.

And by extension, so will she.

Steve's parents'll still be off working all the time but he'll get a ton of presents for Christmas. They'll go for vacation in the Bahama's just like every year, Steve's father will get the new Mercedes and his mother a new strand of pearls, just like always.

Because no matter who wins the world will keep turning.

For people like them, people who live in North Hawkins, life will go on. 

Life always goes on.

\--

Billy tells him two weeks into their situationship and a month after the inauguration that Ronald Reagan planted cocaine in black communities.

"The war on drugs is really a war on poor, black, disenfranchised people in the United States." Billy says spitefully, and Steve doesn't remember that part of government class, but why would he?

He's learning that the American Educational system isn't interested in preaching the truth, so. They're sitting on the hood of the Camaro, sharing a 40 and looking out over the sharp, moss covered rocks of the quarry when Billy says:

"My old man, he. Voted for Reagan because he's racist."

And Steve has to think about it. "Can you really tell all that by who someone votes for?"

Billy stares at him like Steve just grew two extra heads. "Of course you can, dipshit, you vote someone into office who swears to be 'tough on crime,' or to, 'restore God in our schools,' you know what you're getting in for."

Steve feels dumb for having to think about again, like. He knows it's true. Maybe his Nonna isn't racist for believing in creating jobs for Americans but she upholds, like. The standard of the system. He passes the 40 and feels good for connecting the dots himself. 

Billy has taught him a lot in a short amount of time. 

Reads to him out of thick reference books that explain the logistics of how it all works, the billion dollar corporations and the way that kids are essentially prepped for slaughter. It gets hard to sleep sometimes, hard to imagine a world where everything could be okay, but.

Billy says there's always hope.

\--

Three months into their situationship and four months after the inauguration Steve decides everything is bullshit.

Over dinner. 

With his parents, and like. Four of the city's elected officials gawking over the honey roasted ham the "help," whipped up for the occasion. 

And the fuck faces keep calling Margaret the Help, like.

They're southern land owners in a play about racism that they practiced but didn't work all that hard on. Steve makes a point to thank her, by name, every time she comes to refill a glass. And it's not much, but the fight against the patriarchy isn't always in the big moves.

Steve picks at his meal. Tries to focus on the drawl of the evening while the adults discuss politics, and like. The good old days. The mayor is whining about the scourge of rock music on local youths and Steve's mother, ever the opportunist, is gushing about how her son listens to the classics--Simon and Garfunkel, Elvis, Nina Simone.

And Steve likes that kind of music, but. Never mind the Sex Pistols cassette Billy got him for Christmas.

And Steve's marking his way through this dinner, alright?

Pretending not to feel Pamela Harris play footsy with him under the table as Steve's dad basically arranges for him to take the girl to prom next year. 

As if Steve would ever want to dance with anyone but Billy. Anyone else, anyone other. He's pushing a mountain of peas around his plate and counting the minutes until blonde curls are climbing through his window, and then.

Someone's talking about AIDS. 

Claiming that it's a disease only the filthy, the corrupt, find wallowing in their ligaments.

And then someone else is blaming it on disco, which makes Steve snort because that shit's been dead since '81. His father chides him for such a remark and then says, with a napkin tucked into the front of his sweater vest, that the faggots are to blame.

Steve's blood runs cold and then, like an idiot, his mouth takes off without him. 

His adrenaline is pumping so he's honed in on the most bizarre aspects of the conversation. Of the room, and then gaggle of people who seem to be interested in whatever he's saying. The gentle sway of the chandelier overhead calms his nerves and, like. Paints a dewy backdrop to the firm set of his mother's mouth. And pink cheeked Pamela Harris zeroed in on Steve, like.

He's some sort of white savior.

The timbre of his father's voice tells him to _watch his mouth._

Steve cautions against throwing stones in glass houses or whatever, and then before he knows what's happening the door to his bedroom is being slammed shut and locked from the inside to create a fortress. A mighty barrier between who Steve is and who he could've become if fourth period History had gone another way.

The Sex Pistols make an appearance. 

And Steve cranks it up, ignoring the gentle knocks on his bedroom door and his mother asking if he. Needs anything, any water or Tylenol since he isn't _feeling well,_ and okay. 

It's not like Steve's pissed off, or.

Ready to mosh in the living room and create a scene where the mayor is forced into a wall of angry teenagers to atone for his crimes against humanity, but as Steve sits on the floor by his bed, head nodding along to the music, he suddenly feels like. 

He could be doing more.

\--

So that's how he has the clippers raised to shave one side of his head. 

There's a towel around Steve's neck and a fuck load of shaving cream ran through his locks on either side, like uneven snow drifts, and the window slides open. Billy tumbles through, stopping cold in his tracks like he's witnessing something private. 

"What the fuck are you doing, Harrington?"

"What's it look like," Steve says with focus. "I'm fighting the patriarchy." 

He hates the way his voice shakes, and like. The rumble of his heart in his chest with the buzz of the clippers. Billy tosses a bouquet of flowers onto the bed, like Steve's being unreasonable or something. "Babe, the patriarchy couldn't give less of a shit about your hair." He says, and.

Steve throws the towel at the mirror. "I fucking _know that,_ Billy. Alright?" He scrubs at his eyes, watching Billy's expression snap and morph into something that looks a lot like rage but feels a lot like concern. 

Valentines that mean I love you.

He makes his way across the room and manhandles Steve into the spread of his legs so they're connected in the middle. Chest to back, arms tight around Steve's belly. 

Steve shakes his head. "The world is super fucked up and. My parents are bigots, and apparently so is my Nonna and I just don't know how I'm supposed to. Move on, or like. Sit with that in my heart for the next however many years."

Billy's lips ghost the curve of Steve's neck as he says, "You go on like you always have, sugar."

"What, pretending like the injustices aren't there?"

"No, dipshit, by enacting real change. We can get angry. And we should get angry, we can dress in leather and studs and fucking. Deck the mayor in the face. And I will, believe me its on my list--" 

Billy's mouth splitting open with a grin when Steve chuckles against his better judgement.

He kisses Steve's neck again, smooth and gentle. "But you know what enacts real change?"

Steve shakes his head and Billy presses on. "Unionizing. Voting, taking the man down under the force of the law."

Steve cackles at that, loud and bright. "Are you fucking serious?"

Because that's not at all what he thought Billy "the whole place can burn," Hargrove would say, but. Then again he also never thought the guy would be sneaking through his window with _flowers,_ like a dweeb.

Billy throws up the metal horns, serious as Steve's ever seen. "That's as punk rock as it gets, baby doll--irrefutable, legal proof that we didn't start the fire but we're trying to fight it. And we will, and we'll win."

Steve feels better.

Against his will he feels, like. Maybe the sun will rise. He squeezes Billy's knee cap. "What do we do until it's time to vote?"

"What do you mean?"

Steve grins. "You're seventeen, so how do you join the resistance if you can't legally vote?"

Billy stares at him for minute and then bursts out laughing, hands traveling back to fish his wallet from somewhere in his jeans. Billy holds out a thin, incredibly believable fake I.D.

"According to this guy, Harry Miller is twenty years old."

Steve blinks. "You have a fake I.D. so you can vote?"

And.

Billy nods with his whle body, like a bobblehead doll. Cheeks pink and eyes sparkly like it's really something to be proud of and not the dorkiest thing of all time. Steve passes the thing back over with a chuckle.

"That's all well and good, Billy, but in the mean time I'd like to piss off my parents."

Billy winks, clippers somehow materializing in the fold of his hands. He turns them on with a wink, fingers carding through the globs of shaving cream on either side of Steve's head and giggles. "Strap in, Pretty Boy."

And okay. Maybe the world will keep turning.

But Steve will be conscious of the shift.

**Author's Note:**

> The United States is the worst country on the planet.


End file.
